CITATION AND EXAMINATION OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
EUSEBY TREEN JOSEPH CARNABY AND SILAS GOUGH CLERK
BEFORE THE WORSHIPFUL
SIR THOMAS LUCY KNIGHT
TOUCHING DEER-STEELING
On the Nineteenth Day of September in the Year of Grace 1582
NOW FIRST PUBLISHED FROM ORIGINAL PAPERS




EDITOR'S PREFACE.



"It was an ancestor of my husband who BROUGHT OUT the famous
Shakspeare."

These words were really spoken, and were repeated in conversation as
most ridiculous. Certainly such was very far from the lady's
intention; and who knows to what extent they are true?


The frolic of Shakspeare in deer-stealing was the cause of his
Hegira; and his connection with players in London was the cause of
his writing plays. Had he remained in his native town, his ambition
had never been excited by the applause of the intellectual, the
popular, and the powerful, which, after all, was hardly sufficient
to excite it. He wrote from the same motive as he acted,--to earn
his daily bread. He felt his own powers; but he cared little for